


It's All About The House

by foxtwin



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Canon, Atlantic City, Fairy Tales, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxtwin/pseuds/foxtwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Witch tells her side of Hansel & Gretel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All About The House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akamarykate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamarykate/gifts).



The house wasn’t difficult to make: A pinch of salt here, a pinch of dust there, a tiny bit of turtle shell, essence of girl’s breath, the lock of a boy’s hair. You know. The usual. Oh, and we can’t forget the chant for the recipe. Never that. What was difficult was finding a soul to bake in my oven.

I’d been scouring the woods for days trying to find some lost soul wandering the woods. So I did my rounds as usual, hoping against hope that I’d get at least a sleeping woodcutter or some depressed woman who had run away from her abusive husband.

You cannot imagine my joy upon seeing two sleeping children in my woods. Children! And not just two nasty boys or two boo-hooing girls, either, but one of each! Why, I hadn’t had the taste of a child since that unlucky babe had been left on the tree stump near the river some thirty years ago. You know the stump that has the notch in it? Yes, the old birch tree. Right. Made that notch myself. But that’s another story.

In any case, I dug in my satchel and began my ritual and the chanting. Can’t ever forget the chanting. Heh, I’d almost forgotten the chant for the candy house, it had been so long. Let’s see if I can remember it now. Hmm. Come on, thinker...Get thinking. Damn, but it’s been a long time. Oh yes...I think this is it...

 

 _Cinnamon apples, cherries and pear,_

 _Bring honey and walnuts and spices so rare._

 _Cake and plum puddings that fill up the mouth,_

 _Grow me a mansion that faces due south._

 _Floors made with sugary wafers throughout,_

 _Then sprinkle with cinnamon ever about._

 _Walls make of sprinkles, and long minty sticks,_

 _Walls filled with cashews and peanuts for bricks,_

 _Sprinkle the roof with a sugary snow,_

 _Lace all the windows with chocolate-cream dough._

 _Mix in some gummi bears, nougats and fudge,_

 _Stir up the batter, then give it a nudge_

 _Of anise and clove, of nutmeg and ginger._

 _A cocoa-strewn pathway will act as harbinger_

 _For sweet little lassies and laddies to eat,_

 _To eventually become a witch’s fine treat._

 

I don’t think that’s all exactly right, but you get the idea. Took a long while to get the ingredients to mix right, as I’d lost my magic wand and had to do all the mixing by hand. That and trying to remember it all. Then having to start over. You know that gets tiring after a while? Justine, my then neighbor, said the slow method was the best, but I was in a hurry as I hadn’t eaten well in four weeks.

So you can imagine how I felt when that boy wouldn’t get fat. Me, having to wait what seemed an eternity just to get a little skin on the bones. And that insufferable girl, who couldn’t do anything right. Hmph. I asked her to take out the trash, and she dumps it right in front of the house. Didn’t her parents teach her to take the trash ‘round the back? I thought to myself then, as I do now, that she of all people deserved to be left alone in the woods. Such a girl! So, I had to do it myself, by Hecate!  But that wasn’t the worst of it, of course. I had her sweep the house every day to separate the cocoa from the cinnamon. Oy, what a mess! She would sweep the cinnamon _into_ the cocoa and make a worse mess of the floor, as once the two mixed it was impossible to get them unmixed (without a little help and giving myself away and all the consequences of _that_ happening, you can’t _imagine_ ). I kept telling myself I have to change the recipe so that doesn’t ever happen again, but I keep forgetting to write myself a... Hold on a moment so I can write myself a note. ...There... Oh...and I need to add marshmallow to the mix. The little ones need a soft pillow at night.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. The girl. Ach, what a wretch! Did you know, she asked me to light the oven fire that day my skin got burned? Yeah, she pushed me into the oven, the wretched thing! The moustache on my lip that I’d been growing? Gone. The wart on my nose? Burned away! My tush was as crunchy as toast, let me tell you! Sitting down? I couldn’t do it for days afterward. And my greasy gray hair was all gone for months after that. I tried to make a wig with my wand, but it never came out right. Either too blonde or too red. Never the right shade, damn it.

So you read the news about it? How I died in the flames? That’s all hogwash, you know. The oven wasn’t so hot as the story makes you believe, but I did have to eat my way out of the oven. Burned my tongue something fierce. And by the time I got out, of course, the kids were gone. Luckily, though, I didn’t starve. Turns out the boy had been using chicken bones to stick through his cage. (Don’t ask me where he got the darned things, because I couldn’t tell you.) So, I made ‘em into powder and cooked ‘em for supper. Not as nutritious as the kids would have been, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Naw, I don’t live in those woods any more. The neighborhood has changed. The Black Forest isn’t what it used to be, you know. So, I’ve joined the carnival circuit in New Jersey. Samantha wanted me to go to Atlantic City, but the State Fair is a better gig. Lots of opportunities there for my craft. Only problem is, it’s against the law to cook children there. Like I should know what the cooking laws of New Jersey are at my time of life. Uh, by the way, you wouldn’t happen to know a good lawyer, would you? I may have to move again.


End file.
